Dear J.T. & Dale: With the exception of eight months, I have been unemployed for the past six years due to the economy. How can I try to fill in that gap? Some employers ask me about it, and they don’t seem satisfied with my answer that it is due to the economy, which I have no control over. Is there something else I can tell them? – Charles

DALE: I’m not satisfied either, Charles. Yes, unemployment is too high, but here’s the reality: When the economy is running along nicely, the unemployment rate is still about five percent, as employees come and go. Compare that with the recent rate, about eight percent, and you find just a three percent gap. That three percent is millions of people, and it’s a human and financial waste, but it’s still three percent.

Even with multi-year unemployment, hiring managers wonder why you haven’t found a way into the 90-plus percent. They ask themselves: “Why has everyone passed on this guy? What’s wrong?” You can blame the economy for a few months or a year, but after that you either need retraining or to relocate, or maybe just a new search strategy.

J.T.: Let’s start with a new strategy. Try to give hiring managers a more quantified sense of what you’ve been doing to look for work. Tell them how many hours each week you spend looking, the networking events you attend and what skills you’ve been working on to stay current and marketable. Let them know you’re working hard at finding work.

DALE: That, I fear, will just reinforce the impression that a zillion other hiring managers have passed on you. Instead, I’d urge you to find a way to make a new start. Get holiday or part-time work, or help out in a friend’s business in order to get something recent on your resume. Then, in interviews, tell hiring managers that you took time off to … well, to work on family issues or whatever it is you actually were doing.

Come up with something credible that allows you to say that you’ve just come back into the job market. Meanwhile, make the new start real: Don’t look just for a job, but for new contacts and new skills. Use the time to get better at what you do, and you’ll soon find yourself on the 90-plus percent side of the employment statistics.

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